NASA's Challenge

Here's NASA at its best: The New York Times does an update on the agency's Centennial Challenges, a series of contests offering prizes from $200,000 to $5 million for winning efforts to design everything from new astronaut gloves to elevators that could be used for hauling gear and people into space. The contests are exciting and fun, they stimulate new thinking about space exploration, they stoke public interest in the space program and, the Times reports, they send at least ripples of change through the agency's established bureaucratic procedures:

NASA officials say that some of their contractors are worried that the contests could undermine their work for the space agency. NASA already has companies working on gloves for its space suits; why, then, does it need an Astronaut Glove Challenge? Exactly how good ideas from the competitions will be integrated into the space program isn't entirely clear. "We're still writing the book on this," Mr. [Carl E.] Walz [of NASA's space exploration directorate] said.

No problem with that. That book could end up being a very interesting read.